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27th January 2026
09:47am GMT
It's fair to say the first weekend of a major new GAA rule caused confusion up and down the country.
For the 2026 season, the GAA has implemented a new hooter rule in football that signals the immediate end of the game, stopping play entirely once the horn sounds.
Play only continues if a free kick or penalty has already been awarded before the hooter sounds.
This rule is a shift from the 2025 rule where the ball had to go out of play to trigger the final whistle.
The difficulties with the new came to a head on Sunday after Kerry's late win over Roscommon.
With the last play of the game, Seán O’Shea delivered a long ball into the square. Tomás Kennedy rose highest, secured possession, turned, and fisted the ball over the bar just as the hooter sounded.
The score sparked celebrations among the home crowd, but Roscommon players and supporters were left furious. Many felt the buzzer had already gone before Kennedy’s point was scored.
Referee Brendan Cawley stood by his decision, and Kerry escaped with a one-point win.
Since Sunday, plenty have come out to criticise the new rule, and questioned why there was a change.
"I prefer it the way it was last year, definitely," former Dublin All-Ireland winner John Small told the 42. "I like to see a team having the ball for the last play and having to work a score.
"It's what we practise so much in training, conditioned games like that. You work on plays where there is just 90 seconds left and you need to create a two-pointer.
"I just thought It was a really exciting part of the game and don't like it finishing bang on 70 minutes."
Meath and Maynooth captain Eoghan Frayne felt similarly, saying: "It’s awkward. It’s definitely an awkward situation.
"I don’t think there needed to be a change. I think it probably should have been left the way it was. It just leaves a lot of controversy at the end of games.
"We’ve already seen it in the first round of the league. There’s controversy straight away. I don’t think it’s the last we’ll see of it.
"It just makes things awkward for the referee as well. The TV clock wasn’t correct in the Kerry game. They don’t really seem to be synced up.
"The other thing about it, you can’t have it in some places and not in others. That makes no sense to me at all. We only had it in Navan in the club championship. It was in Croke Park at the weekend, but it wasn’t in Omagh for the Kildare game.
"If they’re going to do it, it should be in every ground."
There is also a thought that the new rule will mean the end of tense, exciting plays like the one seen at the end of the first half of July's All-Ireland final.
Kerry strategically ran the clock down to the hooter, before David Clifford unleashed a two-pointer to edge the game away from Donegal.
